The hotel accommodated 47 guests in Hurghada, Egypt. They detained three people, including a chef – TVNOVINY.sk

Nearly 50 guests staying at one of the hotels in the Egyptian resort of Hurghada on the Red Sea coast have been poisoned over the weekend. Tourists, including four Czechs, 14 Estonians and 29 Russians, were hospitalized after eating dinner. Most of them have already been released from the hospital as their condition has improved. Referring to the statement of the Egyptian Attorney General, the AP informed about it on Monday.

Egyptian Attorney General Hamad Savi has ordered the detention of three hotel employees, including the head chef, in connection with the investigation. They face accusations of endangering the lives of guests, which they deny.

Egyptian authorities have ordered the closure of the hotel. They also suspended its director and revoked his permission to perform such work, according to AP. Russian Consul General in Hurghada, Viktor Voropeyev, said the guests had been taken to other hotels.
Voropeyev, quoted by the Russian agency TASS, added that “the health status of all patients is satisfactory, stable” and none of them is life-threatening.

The incident came at a time when Egypt is trying to revive tourism, its key industry, which has already been marked by the 2011 revolution and, most recently, the new coronavirus pandemic.

The local government is also trying to attract foreign tourists to the country through looser epidemiological measures in the resorts of Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh. Russia’s tourism was also strengthened by Russia’s decision to resume commercial flights to these Black Sea resorts in August. It is the Russians who are one of the most frequent foreign tourists in Egypt, according to AP.

Moscow banned direct flights to Egypt after a jihadist attack on a Russian plane in October 2015. The plane crashed in Sinai after a bomb blast shortly after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh. All 224 people on board were killed.